New e-records system leads to 20% drop in emergency department performance at Addenbrooke’s

The first hospital trust in the United Kingdom to implement a new electronic patient records system has experienced a 20% drop in the performance of its emergency department, as well as other serious problems.

The new eHospital system was launched at Addenbrooke’s and Rosie Hospitals in Cambridge in October, promising improvements to the care of patients. But so far the system has experienced what the local clinical commissioning group (CCG) has called “significant problems” that have affected the hospital’s performance and local GPs.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the two hospitals, has given reassurances that it made allowances for delays while the new system was being implemented and said that it was treating concerns over the potential effect on the safety of patients seriously.

The eHospital system, which went live on 26 October, is designed to improve the quality of care for patients by ensuring that clinical staff can access relevant patient information wherever they are using handheld devices with bespoke software designed by clinicians. The trust has worked with two partners over 18 months to implement the system, which was provided by a company called Epic, while Hewlett Packard provided the …